HIGHER EDUCATION FOR ANGLICAN YOUNG LADIES IN AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 178, 25 August 1876, Page 14

HIGHER EDUCATION FOR ANGLICAN YOUNG LADIES IN AUCKLAND.

A clerical correspondent of the Auckland 'Church Gazette' ] (Anglican) calls the attention of the members of his community to the want of suitable High Schools for their girls, and offers a liberal donation with a view of establishing such schools. All honor, he says, to the Roman Catholics who have established so many schools for the higher education of their pirls. But he naturally objects to Anglican young ladies being dependent on Roman Catholic convent schools for their education ; since, to say the least of it, Catholics "differ" from Protestants. He tells us that when remonstrating with the parents of his people for sending their girls to Roman Catholic convent schools, the reply he gets from them is, "we have our children well educated there." This is assuredly very complimentary to the good nuns in Auckland, who conduct those schools, I believe. You have one or more High Schools for young ladies in your highly intellectual city, the Athens of New Zealand. But, if I mistake not, these are non-religious or purely secular, and would not suit the taste of most Anglicam. lam curious to see if the Anglicans of Auckland will adopt the suggestion of the rev. correspondent of the ' Church Gazette ' referred to, and establish schools on a par with our convent schools. I hope they will. Everything tending to promote a thorough religious education among Anglicans ought, in my opinion, to interest us Catholics very much. The Anglican Church, of all reformed churches, is the least deformed, and comes nearest to the Catholic Church in doctrine and discipline. The more thoroughly Anglicans are acquainted with their own religion, and paradoxical as it may sound, the more warmly they are attached to it; so much the better for us. The Roman Catholic Church is being daily recruited from the Anglican body — lay and clerical. Who are these Anglicans ? They are the very persons who had studied their own religion most thoroughly, and who most conscientiously performed all its duties ; who were most warmly attached to it so long as they remained Protestants. It is not the ignorant, cold, or indifferent among the Anglican body who " come over to Rome," as the popular phrase goes, but the best instructed, the most devout, and most thoughtful at<d exemplary among them. Every effort, therefore, made by the Anglican clergy to promote the religious instruction of their young ladies, and to guard them against religious indifference, and the secularising spirit of the age, ought to be welcomed by Roman Catholics. If they establish High j Schools to rival our convent schools, so much the better. The ! good nuns, I believe, would welcome them cordially into the field, as noble and generous competitors in the cause of Christian education. The Anglican people can hardly fail to see, however, that there is great danger to Protestantism in any attempt to establish schools for their daughters, conducted on the principle of convent schools and by lady teachers animated by a religious zeal such as that which guides our nuns. Protestant nuns and sisters of charity we see generally go to swell the ranks of the Catholic Church in the long run. This is natural. A more than usual religious or Christian fervour will never be satisfied with the cold and worldly system of Protestantism. If Anglicans established " Convent Schools" or anything like these, the upshot would be that ere long they would collapse. The lady teachers would either go off to be married, or take up schools on their own account for filthy lucre's sake ; or, " horribile dictu" — horrible idea — they would go over to Rome and become " religious" in earnest. Many Catholic parents hardly value as they ought, I fear, the Nun's schools. Many good Protestants actually appreciate them better, as we see from the Anglican clergyman's letter referred to at the beginning of these remarks. Still, the great body of Catho- j lies know well how much they owe to the nuns for their hard and often poorly requited labors, in the education of their children. In proportion as Catholic parents are pious and virtuous they will value schools conducted by the religious orders both of men and , women, and support them accordingly. The people of Dunedin and Otago and Wellington generally show a noble example in this way to all their co-religionists in these colonies, Judging from my own experience I should say Anglicans often do not know much that is contained in their " Book of Common Prayer/ and possibly some of their clergy think it is just as well they do not. Sooth to say much of it is terribly " popish." The duty of religious " fasting," and the practice of " Auricular Confession" to a " priest" are plainly enjoined by the " Book of Common Prayer," and observed, too, by many devout Anglicans. Yet, atrange to say, such things are vehemently opposed and denounced by many Anglican clergy — men who eat the bread of the Anglican Church. This is more than strange, it is monstrous, not to say wicked. Can it be that " The Book of Common Prayer" is really the Anglican's rule of faith and duty in all points ? No. Then what is its use? Will any of your Anglican readers tell us. Many besides myself may be curious to know that. Perhaps they think the less said about it the better. Be it so. Still, success say I to the efforts of Anglicans to establish High Schools for their young ladies, where the " Book of Common Prayer" may be daily used and thoroughly studied, and its contents appreciated fully, and the practices it enjoins shall be faithfully observed. The study of the Bible and Anglican Prayer Book has brought many into the Roman Catholic Church, and may yet bring many more with God's help. The practice is the great thing. Let any man practice what the Anglican Church enjoins, and I think he will be in a fair way to enter the Roman Catholic Church at no distant day. Laic.